MONTREAL—The Toronto Maple Leafs had a new coach, the Montreal Canadiens had a chance to inflict a devastating blow to their ancient rivals’ playoff hopes and it was Hockey Night in Canada. Saturday night had all the ingredients for a wild, memorable night.

It was—for 20 minutes. After a frenetic first period in which the end-to-end action had Montreal rocking, the other ingredients took over: the 12th place team in the Eastern Conference playing the cellar-dwellers in a game that may have marked the low point for professional hockey in Canada.

The Maple Leafs delivered a 3-1 victory for Randy Carlyle in his debut behind the Toronto bench, Mikhail Grabovski’s three-point night validating his new coach’s reputation as a master of matchups. With Phil Kessel’s line dormant, Carlyle sent out Grabovski, Matt Frattin and Clarke MacArthur against Montreal’s weaker defensemen, and that was where the game was won.

“Our key is a fast game,” Grabovski said. “Our coach said, ‘You guys can play, you can skate. Our speed will win the games.’ So we tried to play full speed.”

Grabovski’s line did that, running laps around Chris Campoli, Alexei Emelin, Tomas Kaberle and Yannick Weber while P.K. Subban and Josh Gorges spent most of their night keeping Kessel and Joffrey Lupul under wraps.

Meanwhile, the Canadiens’ one productive line—Max Pacioretty, David Desharnais and Erik Cole—spent the majority of the game skating against Dion Phaneuf and Carl Gunnarsson. When Cole scored in the first period, it was a rare time when Luke Schenn was on the ice against Montreal’s top line, rather than the All-Star and Toronto captain, Phaneuf.

So, wonder of wonders, the Leafs moved into 11th place in the East—until the Buffalo Sabres beat the Vancouver Canucks 5-3 later in the night and sent Toronto back to 12th.

As part of its Saturday night coverage, Canada’s national broadcaster gives weekly airtime to Don Cherry, allowing the former Boston Bruins and Colorado Rockies coach to spew venom at whomever he sees fit. During the first intermission of the Leafs-Canadiens game, Cherry made up for his unusually tame (for him) choice in suit (a shimmering black ensemble with a flower in the lapel, making it appear that the 78-year-old man had attended the wedding of his beloved sofa), by going from his usual xenophobia to straight-up provincialism. Cherry’s complaint? No Ontario-born players on the current Toronto roster.

There are a lot more real problems with the roster that Toronto GM Brian Burke has constructed, starting with the lack of a No. 1 center and the lack of a No. 1 goalie. But as far as the landscape of professional hockey in the game’s homeland goes, the Maple Leafs actually are in the middle of the pack.

The Canadiens, the game’s most storied team, have endured a lost season in which both an assistant coach and the head coach have been fired on game days, the new head coach has been rejected by the fan base because of his inability to speak French and a player was traded during a game.

The Calgary Flames seem like they will never admit that it is time to begin rebuilding, while their Alberta rivals in Edmonton seem like they will never finish rebuilding.

The Ottawa Senators are a wonderful story of a team overcoming expectations this season, playing an entertaining style of hockey under rookie coach Paul MacLean. While the Senators figure to be first-round fodder in the playoffs, their future is bright. That is, assuming they stay in business. On Wednesday, Ontario politicians announced plans to eliminate tax exemptions for businesses buying tickets to sporting events, and Senators president Cyril Leeder told the National Post, “If they made all tickets, suites non-deductible, we wouldn’t survive.”

Also in playoff position in the Eastern Conference are the Winnipeg Jets, whose margin over the ninth-place Capitals is two points – with Washington holding two games in hand. The Jets are on the upswing, but they are still the Atlanta Thrashers wearing new clothes, while their continued presence in the Southeast Division is a reminder that the NHL and the NHLPA could not come to an agreement on realignment plans.

The one elite team in Canada is the Canucks, who last June—during the Stanley Cup Finals—inspired a two-part Edmonton Journal piece entitled “Why Canadian fans love to hate the Vancouver Canucks.”

Canadian fans might have to learn to love the Canucks if they want to see the Stanley Cup on home soil anytime soon. No team north of the border has hoisted the chalice since the 1993 Canadiens, and no other team appears close. It is always darkest, however, before the dawn.

In Montreal, where the 2000s were the first fallow decade in team history, that is unfathomable. There are people who can legally drink in Quebec who have never seen the Canadiens win the Cup. The good news for the Habs is that Carey Price, who made 39 saves in Saturday’s loss, is 24 years old, while Pacioretty is 23 and Subban is 22—with more talent in the pipeline and Montreal’s lost season meaning a top prospect on the way at the June draft.

In Toronto, where the Cup drought dates to 1967, Carlyle is the first coach in 32 years with a championship on his resume. He showed against the Canadiens that he is a good enough tactician to win another—if Burke gets him the players, wherever they may come from.